There has been a security breach on the Ubuntu Forums. The Canonical IS team is working hard as we speak to restore normal operations. This page will be updated regularly with progress reports.

What we know

Unfortunately the attackers have gotten every user's local username, password, and email address from the Ubuntu Forums database.The passwords are not stored in plain text. However, if you were using the same password as your Ubuntu Forums one on another service (such as email), you are strongly encouraged to change the password on the other service ASAP.Ubuntu One, Launchpad and other Ubuntu/Canonical services are NOT affected by the breach.Progress report

2013-07-20 2011UTC: Reports of defacement2013-07-20 2015UTC: Site taken down, this splash page put in place while investigation continues.If you're using Ubuntu and need technical support please see the following page for support:Finding Help.If you're looking for a place to discuss Ubuntu, in the meantime we encourage you to check out these sites:

I do, luckily I don't use the password I have there for important things (like email) and the user name doesn't bother me. Also, do I need to change my email address? The worst I think I will get is spam (not dump enough to fall for those) but IDK what else they can use for it.

Well, one forum in particular has a cohort that simply despise anything Ubuntu, and anyone "bad enough" to even speak of it, let alone use it or participate on it's forum.(and that includes using, or approving of, Linux Mint).Not all of them, just a hard core.

Oh, I have. But if you go to the Ubuntu forums and criticize anything that's related to Ubuntu, you're flamed quite instantly.If you want to talk about the command line instead of doing anything via X11, you're flamed quite instantly.Etc.

/dev/urandom wrote:Oh, I have. But if you go to the Ubuntu forums and criticize anything that's related to Ubuntu, you're flamed quite instantly.If you want to talk about the command line instead of doing anything via X11, you're flamed quite instantly.Etc.

Those are arrogant.

The problem on the ubuntu forums is when someone registers just to "troll"...they will make some stupid post about how ubuntu totally screwed up their computer or some other ridiculous nonsense and usually get locked pretty quickly...

Other then that...open discussion is welcome and there are many people who are very helpful with solving problems...including for beginners in that section as well...and i have had plenty of friendly discussions with people who disagreed with me over there...as long as you don't go "overboard" the moderators don't delete the posts...

I feel like this is a pretty good time to point out how great passphrase managers are. People have like 50 accounts and get lazy, so they start reusing their weak passphrases. As a result of this fact, there's like 100% guarantee that someone's online bank account is going to get penetrated after a breach at any online service.

I tend to keep a copy of my usernames/passes in my version of a password manager which is a tatty old small notebook that I very much doubt anyone would be likely to steal even if they could break in and manage to find it, or know what it was

Usernames are normally partial as are email addresses and passwords, there's only me that would ever 'get it', I sleep soundly at night with no worries about my online banking, password managers may be ok but the details on the machine, which is more likely to be taken than a scruffy notebook, sometimes you just can't beat a pen and paper

Edit: this is a good little site for anyone that has trouble thinking them up